Campos y subjetividad

The following projects are intended to reduce the potential for a large and devastating wildfire in the planning area. The projects could be implemented individually, or in any combination thereof, depending on available resources.

Project: Establish a city-wide Wildfire Protection Council – High Priority City leaders will appoint a community based committee to oversee and provide leadership in the implementation of Wildfire Protection Plan projects. The committee will look for ways to keep interest and enthusiasm high for reducing wildfire hazards within the city. They will identify project priorities and seek funding in the form of grants to help achieve projects which cannot be accomplished by individual home owners. The committee will identify and utilize Firewise experts who can assist the local fire department in giving advice to homeowners as to the development of defensible space on their property and how to use fire resistant building material to make their homes more fire safe. Ideally, the committee should have representatives from the local fire department, Oregon Department of Forestry, City Council, Port of Cascade Locks, ODOT, Forest Service, Cascade Locks School and interested citizens. Information gathered as part of the assessment of individual homes in Cascade Locks using NFPA 299 criteria will be available to help identify high priority parcels for the development of defensible space and the use of fire resistant building materials.

Project: Community-wide Wildfire Awareness Week – High Priority Organize an annual Wildfire Awareness Week in Cascade Locks. Recruit

“Neighborhood Captions” to assist with the promotion and implementation of the community campaign. Conduct Firewise programs for individual neighborhoods. Have local firemen visit homes and ask the homeowner to participate in the event and ask for a verbal commitment emphasizing their responsibility to do so. Combine this visit with an assessment of the home and recommendations to reduce wildfire hazards and to develop an effective defensible space. Emphasize the idea that the homeowner will be helping to reduce the risk of injury to firefighters who may have to defend their property. The city-owned television station is a good media to advertise the event.

Project: Establish a brush disposal site – High Priority

City leaders will work to establish a site where residents can bring woody material for disposal. The intent is to provide a site where residents can easily dispose of small trees and brush removed as part of establishing an effective defensible space around their homes. The material would either be chipped and bagged for use as mulch, or burned on site. This service will make it easier for many home-owners to dispose of woody

materials and would reduce the risk of having the material burned on individual parcels

across the city. The disposal site should be located on a site large enough to

accommodate a large volume of material. City leaders might approach Port of Cascade Locks officials to see if there would be an acceptable location on Port property for the site.

Project: Establish a demonstration project, or projects – Moderate Priority

City officials will establish one, or more, demonstration projects within the city to show how an effective defensible space can be created around a home-site. Before and after pictures will be taken. Homeowners who cannot afford to, or can’t physically, do the hazard reduction work may present a good opportunity for such a project.

Project: Explore fire insurance incentives for hazard reduction efforts – Low Priority

Contact insurance companies at the local and state level to explore the possibility of incentives for home-owners who create an effective defensible space around their homes.

Some car insurance companies offer discounts to clients who complete defensive driving courses. The same might be possible for fire insurance and wildfire hazard reduction efforts. Incentives may include rebates on fire resistant construction materials applied to homes as part of remodeling efforts.

Project: Produce Firewise type materials for Channel 23 – High Priority

The city of Cascade Locks owns and operates its own television station, Channel 23.

This service is used by many residents and is an excellent means to provide information to city residents. The city will facilitate the development of a series of videos designed to show the importance of wildfire hazard removal, and how it can be accomplished. The videos should be short (5-10 minutes long) to keep viewers attention. They should be professionally done to hold viewers attention. They can be shown many times to assure everyone has an opportunity to experience them.

Project: Help homeowners who need assistance to become fire-safe– High Priority Identify homeowners who desire to improve their defensible space around their homes, or who want to replace building construction material with more fire resistant material, but are unable to physically do the work and cannot afford to have it done. Seek ways to assist these homeowners in accomplishing their goals for making their homes more fire-safe.

Project: Railroad related hazards – High Priority

The city Wildfire Protection Council will work with the Union Pacific Railroad Track

less accessible to fire fighting equipment and to those zones with heavy fuel loads on adjacent property.

Remove, or prune, conifer trees within the railroad ROW. Crown fires prone to long-range spotting are more likely to occur in conifer trees as compared with most deciduous trees. Pruning conifer trees reduces ladder fuels and the potential of a wildfire to carry from surface fuels into the crowns of trees. Some branches of conifers currently overhang the rails presenting the possibility of wildfire ignition by sparks from the exhaust of engines.

Remove discarded railroad ties from the ROW. Currently, there are numerous piles of old ties adjacent to the rail line. These ties are a serious wildfire hazard which could be easily ignited and provide a situation that would be difficult to suppress.

Require hazardous maintenance activities including rail grinding, in-track welding, open-flame rail heating, and brush cutting operations to occur only during periods of low potential for wildfire ignition. Explore options available to the city or county to mandate this type of scheduling.

Investigate the potential for providing an access route for firefighting vehicles where it does not presently exist.

Railroad near Dry Creek looking west.

Project: Dispose of fire-killed trees and brush – Moderate Priority

The September 2003 wildfire in Cascade Locks left large areas of fire-killed trees and brush. The wildfire may have initially reduced the overall fuel load in much of the burned area. However, as the fire-killed trees deteriorate and begin to fall down, surface fuel loads will increase and may present an even worse wildfire hazard. Fire-killed vegetation is easier to ignite and can burn with more extreme fire behavior as compared with live vegetation including some, or all, of the following: long flame lengths, high rate of spread, prolific crowning and/or spotting, presence of fire whirls, strong convection column. These conditions make wildfire suppression difficult and hazardous for fire fighters. Some of the fire-killed vegetation has been removed, but much remains to be treated. Portions of the remaining dead wood may be utilized as fire wood by city residents and this may be an incentive for getting it removed.

Example of fire-killed trees (2003 wildfire) being disposed of in Cascade Locks.

Project: Interstate 84 – Moderate Priority

Highway maintenance actions by ODOT offer opportunities to reduce wildfire hazards within their ROW. Some modifications of their practices may help reduce wildfire

Project: Improve access for fire fighting equipment and escape routes – High Priority

Several neighborhoods within the city are served by only one means of ingress and egress. This presents a dangerous situation during a wildfire emergency and limits the options for getting fire fighting equipment in and out during a wildfire. During an emergency, people may panic and accidents could occur blocking the only means of escape. Also, a fast moving fire could block the only route out of danger.

Neighborhoods with only one means of ingress/egress include: Mountain View Drive, Lucy Lane, Sunset Avenue, Edgewood Avenue, John Quincy Court, Sadie. This list is not meant to be inclusive of all situations in the city with access problems. There are additional roads leading to just one or two homes as well such as the Jackson Roberts road, Gravel Road and the drive which leads across the Port of Cascade Locks property on the southwest end of the city.

Options should be explored for providing at least one additional means of access for these types of neighborhoods. In some cases, it may be possible to connect two or more of the neighborhoods to provide access options. This could be a part of the city’s transportation planning process. The City Wildfire Protection Council should encourage the city to conduct this type of study and could offer advice on priorities.

Project: Wildfire hazard reduction on adjacent National Forest System Lands – Moderate Priority

The city of Cascade Locks borders National Forest System lands for most of its southern boundary. These lands are part of the Mt. Hood National Forest and are included in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (CRGNSA). They have special provisions to protect scenic, natural, and other resources. The lands are forested with heavy fuel loads presenting a potential wildfire threat to the city.

The Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA),⁸ provides administrative procedures for hazardous-fuel-reduction projects on National Forest System lands in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas of communities considered “at-risk” from wildfire threats. The act encourages the development of Community Wildfire Protection Plans under which communities will designate their WUIs, and where HFRA fuel reduction projects may take place. Federal agencies and their State and local cooperators must be prepared to provide information and services to support these communities.

The City of Cascade Locks is a Community at Risk as listed in Federal Register.⁹ National Forest System lands, for a distance of one and one-half miles south of the city’s southern boundary, should be considered a Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) as defined in the HFRA. Further, the city has long standing water rights on Dry Creek from which it has relied for its domestic water source in past years and has plans to re-instate that use. The Dry Creek watershed is considered a watershed at risk from the threat of wildfire as defined in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. Under provisions of

8 (Public law 108-148, 2003).

9 Federal Register/Vol 66, No. 160/Friday, August 17, 2001.

the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, the City of Cascade Locks should ask the Forest Service to conduct the following:

• Identify and map the fire regime and fire regime condition class, or classes, in the WUI and in the Dry Creek watershed.

• Assess the threat of a wildfire beginning on National Forest System lands to the City of Cascade Locks and the Dry Creek watershed.

• Assess the likely effects on water quality, sediment delivery, and water supply system infrastructure if a wildland fire occurs in or adjacent to the Dry Creek watershed. This assessment should be conducted at the appropriate scale for determining the risk that a wildland fire event may pose to the quality of the municipal water supply or to maintenance of the system.¹⁰

• Collaborate with the City of Cascade Locks to develop a long term program to reduce fuel loads and wildfire hazards on National Forest System lands within the WUI. Potential wildfire hazard reduction projects should include the removal of fire-killed trees from the 2003 wildfire and the creation of shaded fuel breaks within one-half mile of the National Forest System boundary.

Project: City Ordinance changes – Moderate Priority

The Cascade Locks City Council will review its city ordinances to see what changes should be made to help reduce wildfire hazards within the city. The City Council should consider the following as potential ordinance changes.

New Construction

• Require fire resistant roofing materials.

• Require vents and openings to be screened.

• Require decks to be screened or enclosed.

• Adopt recommended standards for fuel breaks, roads and driveways to meet the requirements of OAR 660-06-035, and OAR 66006-040 (see Oregon Department of Forestry, Land Use Planning Notes. Number 1, March 1991. These standards

address: fuel breaks, roads and driveways (widths, curve radius, vertical clearance, Cul-de-Sacs, bridges and culverts, grades, identification, turnouts, dead-end situations) and are outlined in Appendix D.

Existing Homes

• If feasible, locate woodpiles a minimum of 20 feet from any home or outbuilding.

• Require fire resistant material for the replacement of roofs.

• Require the clear posting of property address.

Project: Hazard fuel reduction south of I-84 – High Priority

Most of the land between I-84 and the National Forest boundary is heavily forested with mature conifers and scattered hardwoods with a brushy under story. Almost all of the area has a high wildfire hazard rating. Ownership is mainly private but there is some National Forest, City of Cascade Locks, Port of Cascade Locks, State Parks and ODOT lands. Over time, much of these lands will be developed for residential purposes which will tend to reduce the fuel load. However, there is presently a need to treat the fuel situation to reduce the potential for wildfires entering the city from the south.

Landowners should be encouraged to thin their stands of timber and create shaded fuel breaks in an effort to break up the continuity of fuels. Opportunities for funding

assistance to support these efforts should be made available to private landowners.

Project: Hazard fuel reduction along the BPA right-of way – High Priority

The city and the Forest Service should work in partnership with the BPA to reduce fuel levels on the BPA right-of-way. This right-of way strip could provide a partially

effective fuel break if treated properly. The city and the Forest Service should meet with BPA Officials to evaluate their right-of-way maintenance program and discuss methods to provide an effective fuel break.